Get to know the layout of Lightroom Classic

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Welcome to this series of tutorials designed to teach you the basics of Adobe Lightroom Classic CC. This tutorial introduces you to the Lightroom Classic interface.

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[First Things First: Learn How Lightroom
for Desktop Works, with Ben Willmore] [Ben Willmore] Now let's get into Lightroom and just take a look at how the screen is laid out so you'll be more comfortable with what's there. So here's Lightroom. At the very top are a list of modules. It's just the text you see in the upper right. These are the various areas of Lightroom
you can switch between. When you click on each one of these modules, what you see on the screen below will change. The Library module
is where you view your images and you organize them. So for instance on the left side of my screen,
I see a list of folders. And so if I know where my images are stored, I could click on a folder there
to view what's on my drive. Or below we have something called Collections which is where I could organize my images to put all the Waterfalls together
or Slot Canyons or whatever it happens to be. But the Library is where you view
and you organize your pictures. Then we can go to the Develop module. That's where we actually adjust our images. There on the right side of my screen I'm going to find a bunch of sliders
where I can move them around to brighten, darken, or do other things to my images. When I want to switch to a different picture,
I can always go back to the Library module, pick a different image,
and then head back to Develop to actually make changes to it. That's where most of the action happens. Now the other modules that are here,
let's take a brief look at them. The Map module can show you
where your images were taken on a map where if you have that information attached
to your images you can look at which images
were taken in Europe versus the U.S. The other modules that are there are for presenting
your images or sharing them with other people. But most of the action happens
in the Library module where you organize things
and in the Develop module where you change them. Now let's look more generically at our screen. You'll find that each edge of your screen features a little triangle. That triangle will allow you to collapse or expand the panel that is stuck
to that edge of your screen. So there's one panel in each edge,
and I can go to the little triangle on the edge of my screen
to collapse and expand each one. The one at the bottom is already collapsed. You might think this little part here is a panel.
That's too small. If I clicked on the triangle,
here's the real panel that's down there. So any panel you don't need
you collapse down. And most of the time, most of the action happens
on the right side of your screen. So it's only the panel that's on the right side
you usually need to have open for the majority of your time
when you're working in Lightroom. The one exception to that is the Library module because in the Library module,
both sides of your screen are kind of equally as important,
so you'll probably have both panels open. Now when you're in the Library,
you might notice this area over to the right called Quick Develop,
and you might assume that that's where you adjust your pictures,
but that's not the primary place you do it. That's under the Develop module
where we were before. So for now, you could just collapse down
that Quick Develop area. Then when you look at those side panels, you'll find that they're divided up
into different sections. Each section has a name
and has a little triangle next to it. We have that both here in the Develop module
and if we head back to the Library module, you'll find that each one of those side panels
divided up into different sections. Well, you can click on the title
of any one of those sections or the triangle that appears next to the title to collapse or expand each section. So if there's a section
that you don't know how to use yet, you might as well collapse it down so it doesn't clutter up your screen. When you're in the Library module,
you can just have your Folder list open because this is where you navigate your hard drive. When you're on the right side in the Library module, if you don't know how to use this stuff yet,
just collapse it down and only expand the stuff you know how to use. You can even collapse the entire side panels and therefore really keep the screen much cleaner. Also you're going to find a bunch of little icons that appear on some images. For now you can ignore those icons
until you learn what they do. There's a bunch of features in Lightroom
that are totally optional. After you're done working on an image,
if you want to share it with someone else, then you'll go to the File menu, and you'll find various choices here
for exporting the image. That's where it would create a copy
that you could supply to somebody else. So now you have a sense
for how the screen is laid out and I hope that makes you
more comfortable and confident as you learn the other features
that are found in Lightroom.

What you learned: The workspace

Lightroom Classic is laid out in modules for different tasks, such as organizing and editing photos. To switch between modules, click the name of a module at the top right of the screen.

Use the Library module to view and organize your photos.

Switch to the Develop module to edit your photos.

Panels are arranged in groups at edges of the screen. Click the small triangle outside a panel group to hide or show the group. Click the title bar of a panel to hide or show the panel.

When it’s time to share a photo, choose File > Export to make a copy of that photo.